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I hear people often say that they like light strings so they won't destroy their spruce tops. Intuitively it makes sense to reduce bridge base pressure on the top. But does it really matter?
The guys who worked at Gibson a very long time said and say it should not affect a well built archtop. If the bracing is done right and the glue is aggressive, 15-56 strings should not be a concern.
Does anyone have any real evidence that these "medium" or "heavy" strings do damage on probably built archtops? These strings were the norm a very long time.
Thanks.Last edited by Marty Grass; 11-09-2015 at 05:11 PM.
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11-09-2015 04:17 PM
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I've seen plenty of sunken tops on archtops, usually on X braced Gibsons of the 30s
might be why Gibson went back to parallel bracing for the majority of archtops post '39
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Heavy strings don't add much extra down force at the bridge. If the breakover angle at the bridge is around 14 degrees the added down force from a heavy set of strings is only about 5 lbs. more than a light set of strings. Changing string tension will alter the down force and effect the tone and volume of the guitar to some degree. A well built archtop should handle a heavy set of strings without any problems.
Last edited by Matt Cushman; 11-09-2015 at 06:59 PM.
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Second time I've seen reference to this over the past week.
Originally Posted by wintermoon
Just to further confuse the Mensans around here, Gibson used a style of top carve for its Advanced body archtops that is typically referred to as the "double hump" carve. Easy to see when the guitar is viewed from the side. The bridge sits between the humps, on a fairly flat section of the top. It can easily be confused with a sunken top when it is not a sunken top. This is not to say that there are not sunken tops on X braced Gibsons of the 30s. It's always useful to check the amount of bridge excursion and the neck set before concluding that the top is sunken.
By the end of the '30s, Gibson changed its top carve and and switched to parallel bracing - the top carve on these and post-war archtops is a much simplified high arch. Into the 1970s, Gibson significantly reduced the amount of recurve on these guitars - their current design has almost no recurve.
[ed. except for the Bozeman L-7C, which has boatloads of recurve. Carry on.]Last edited by Hammertone; 11-09-2015 at 07:02 PM.
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Originally Posted by Hammertone
indeed, but that's not what I was referring to.
I became aware of the top carve of 30's Gibsons way back when I had a '39 Super 400.
the top had a flat area below the humps @ the bridge and the back also had a flat area.
another good way to check besides neck set and bridge is to sight the f-holes from an angle and see if both edges are on the same plane. if the inner edge is lower than the outer it likely has sunken a bit.
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Fair enough. Originally Posted by wintermoon
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I'm not why they went with parallel bracing. I was told that it was to enhance brightness. It also made putting a bridge pickup on practical. But I'm interested I hearing what the truth is about the switch in bracing.
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Archtop guitars were designed to use heavy gauge strings. Jimmy D'Aquisto told me to never use anything lighter than 14-56 on a archtop. He said anything lighter was just hairs. In fact about a month after I got my D he called me up and asked me point blank "You didn't put any hairs on my guitar did you ?".
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remember when jimmy d's master, d'angelico started building guitars wound b's were the rule!!
"hairs"...i know rudy pensa told me that jimmy hated his namesake strings..now, i finally know why..no 14's!! haha..true
cheers
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I think it was a business decision at least partially based on competitive pressure from Epiphone. Originally Posted by Marty Grass
The Triumph/Broadway/Deluxe were 25 1/2" scale, @17 1/2" wide, parallel-braced competitive products that are generally louder and brighter than the 24 3/4" scale, @17" wide, x-braced L-7/L-10/L-12/L-5.
Gibson went with the "new & improved" script, and stuck with it until they went back to the "old-fashioned, just like they used to make them" script in the 1980s.
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I've used a 60s X-500 with a 13-56 set changed to 15 19 (first two strings) for a some months and no problem. Nowadays I use a 012-54 set with 14 18 (first two strings) and no problem either. I don't like less than 12 on archtops.
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Originally Posted by Hammertone
You're a fountain on knowledge, sir.
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Strung to tension and left to sit, all guitars with steel strings will gradually lose optimum neck angle. Arches on archtops will drop. This will vary depending upon design and strings, but it will happen. Nonetheless, I have an almost 80 year old Gibson with a great top arch and great neck angle. The guitar was probably built to take 14 or 15 gauge strings.
grand pianos are rebuilt at 20-25 year intervals due to, among other things, soundboard arch collapses that must be reached.
Archtop guitars need periodic attention. Still, with skinny strings they sound meh. String 'em up, enjoy them, and maintain them.Last edited by Greentone; 11-10-2015 at 07:07 AM.
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I have been thinking about this recently. After seeing old Martin flat-tops with the bridge canting over, breaking in half and lifting off, I thought that it may not be the best thing in the world to PUT AWAY guitars with the heavy gauge strings strung up to pitch. Down tune 2 semi-tones or four, and then put them away. Why have the heavy gauge strings continue to pull on the neck or glued-on bridge/tailpiece or put pressure on the top when they are not being played? What's the average tension on a 25.5" scale length guitar of a six-string 12-52 gauge set at pitch? About 151 pounds? Originally Posted by Greentone
+1. Originally Posted by Greentone
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[QUOTE=Jabberwocky;582774]I have been thinking about this recently. After seeing old Martin flat-tops with the bridge canting over, breaking in half and lifting off, I thought that it may not be the best thing in the world to PUT AWAY guitars with the heavy gauge strings strung up to pitch. Down tune 2 semi-tones or four, and then put them away. Why have the heavy gauge strings continue to pull on the neck or glued-on bridge/tailpiece or put pressure on the top when they are not being played? What's the average tension on a 25.5" scale length guitar of a six-string 12-52 gauge set at pitch? About 151 pounds?
that's what I do to guitars that may be sitting unplayed for awhile
[otherwise known as, "I should probably sell those"]
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So, as I love TI Swing flat wounds but they are only offered in 13-53 as their heaviest gauge, should I switch to another flat wound that offers 14s? Should I pay another $12 and get the George Benson TI strings? Should I take this "hair" comment seriously?
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Howard Roberts used .016, .018, .028, .038, .048, .058 for years and years.
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Switch over to BB114 14-55 Bebops? Stick with the T-I Swing JS113 and swap out the 13, 17 for 14, 18 plains?
Take a haircut, buy the GB114 set? Eat less red meat, drink less plonk for one month and put those savings into a set of GB114?
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I wonder what the tension is on those old time sets with wound B strings? I am guessing that the overall tech has moved on as well.
Best not to judge a string set on the guage of the unwrapped E string. For example, the wound E on the old fender rock and roll 10s was .38; it is .59 on a set of TI AC112s. You can start with the manufacturer tension numbers. Not looking it up, but my guess would be that LaBella tape would 14s would be very low tension.
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Nopedals raises a great point...always go by tension. This varies greatly on the wrapped strings. D'Addario Chromes have pretty high tension when compared with T-I strings of comparable gauge. Of course, the plain strings have essentially the same tension for the same gauges.
I couldn't believe how low tension a set of TI-Swing Flats was when compared with the Chromes I had been using for 20 years. It was like going to Slinky strings, but with some girth.
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In the first paragraph, you refer to the carve design as being commonly known as a double hump. I had no idea that there had been an early variation on the archtop carve, so my question is where did you learn of such a design? Originally Posted by Hammertone
By the way, this thread is a clear example of why I frequent this forum. It seems to me that there is no other place on earth one can go to find such depth of knowledge ready and willing to be shared.
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Flattops and archtops are very different beasts. Originally Posted by Jabberwocky
The flattop has a constant and unbalanced string pull and twist at the bridge. They often need neck resets after two decades and the soundboards can become very distorted.
Classical guitars are often played to death after two or max three decades.
The archtop has a downforce on the top via the bridge. But there is also a lengthwise compressing force via the tailpiece and due to the arch of the top, that compressing force will tend to force the center of the top upwards - thereby partially counteracting the downward force via the bridge. The forces at play (no pun intended) in the archtop archtop are much more balanced and archtops often stay perfectly in shape for many decades even when strung up to pitch. Violins, which are built the same way, survives structurally for centuries.
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the same thing that makes it sound sweet makes it strong
its amazing that the curve of the top not only produces the sweetness and focus that makes the instruments what they are but also makes the top strong enough to hold the strings in place indefinitely.
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Some of us instinctively migrated to the heavier strings and never looked back. I get a used guitar in with a set of 12's...I pull 'em faster than a beat cop downing a doughnut. How some get by with thin strings I'll never know. I'm telling you, heavier string tone matters. You got ears don'tcha?
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Amen, 2bornot2bop. Skinny strings are tone sucks...and they don't play in tune well. AND, if you play a lot of bass--I've played upright for 45 years--ALL guitar strings feel skinny.
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